Jethro Tull’s “Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die.”
David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”
It seems to me a lot of people are defining as “sad” what I’d call “pleasantly downbeat” or “melancholic”.
Nick Drake, for example: In the midst of crippling depression, he managed to make incredibly beautiful music. I don’t find that sad, I find it inspiring and life-affirming.
What makes me sad is all the atrocious garbage that’s in the charts these days.
Anyway, if we’re talking about sad music, it’s hard to believe no-one has mentioned this yet, so I’ll just have to go ahead and win the thread: Mother - John Lennon